C DENNIS WILLIAMS
WORSHIP as
CULTUR AL
CONFRONTATION
BY
C .
D E N N I S
I
n 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District was known as the Black Wall Street. It was one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. Almost every business— banks, hotels, cafés, clothiers, movie theaters—and nice luxurious homes during this time were black owned. Airplanes were owned by black families even though there were only two airports, and black well-educated teachers taught in the school system. However, one day all of this changed. In May of 1931, the Tulsa Tribune newspaper reported that a black man had attempted to rape a white woman (which was never proven), and without waiting for the investigative process to be conducted, people erupted into two days of racial violence, destroying 35 blocks of businesses. There were 300 deaths and 600-800 people injured. Mobs brought guns, shots were fired, and Black Wall Street was eventually eradicated not only because of false reporting, but because whites were jealous of the blacks’ upper-class lifestyle, education, and entrepreneurship. The end results were white terrorism and black dispossession of the land and businesses they had worked hard to invest in. 18 W O R S H I P L E A D E R | W O R S H I P L E A D E R .C O M | VO L . 29, N O. 4
W I L L I A M S
This worship, real worship, will wrinkle your clothes and make your mascara run down your face, and it will make tears flow from your eyes, not because anything is wrong but because everything is right.
